THE LINE-UP for the 33rd Clifden Community Arts Festival, which runs from September 16 to 26, was unveiled on Monday evening at a reception in Galway’s Courtyard Marriott Hotel.
Highlights include events featuring pianist John O’Conor, singer Christy Moore, poets Paul Durcan and Carol Ann Duffy, economist David McWilliams, and historian Diarmaid Ferriter.
Addressing the assembled guests, festival director Brendan Flynn shared anecdotes of such fondly remembered past visitors to Clifden as John McGahern, Seamus Heaney, and Sorley MacLean.
He also highlighted the “extraordinary support of the community” which is a bedrock of the festival and expressed his gratitude to Fáilte Ireland for its enduring support.
Guest speaker Professor Gearoid O’Tuathaigh put on his historian’s hat to point out that the Clifden festival had its beginnings in the late 1970s, at a time when Leonid Brezhnev still presided over the Soviet Union, and Karol Wojtyla was about to become Pope John Paul II. It was also the first decade since the Famine when there was a net increase in Ireland’s population.
The Clifden Community Arts Festival has thus endured through an era of many changes and O’Tuathaigh praised “both the vision which founded the Clifden Community Arts Festival and the vision which has sustained it” to its present status as a central event on the international arts calendar.
“What makes it succeed,” O’Tuathaigh observed “is that it does fulfil a need in the community, the arts fulfils our need for beauty, for magic, for the imagination and for creativity.”
Magic, imagination, and creativity are certainly in plentiful supply in the 2010 festival line-up with its packed programme of readings, concerts, exhibitions, talks and performances.
The music strand of the festival includes performances by Christy Moore with Declan Sinnott (September 18 ), The Irish Chamber Orchestra (September 19 ), Americana and roots singer Jeremy Wallace (September 18 and 19 ), an exciting trad concert featuring the combined talents of John Faulkner, Jackie Daly, and Matt Cranitch (September 20 ), and a concert from pianist John O’Conor (September 24 ).
Literature has always featured strongly in the Clifden festival and this year is no exception. British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy is a welcome visitor. She will be joined by the National Chamber Choir for a reading/recital on September 25.
The ever-popular Paul Durcan reads on September 17 while Edna O’Brien will discuss her work with Des Lally on September 18. Other featured writers include poets Mary O’Malley and Rita Ann Higgins, crime writers Pat Mullan and Maurice O’Scanaill, and BBC broadcaster Mike Harding.
Economist David McWilliams will present a one-hour extract from his recent stage show Outsiders on September 23, while eminent historian Diarmaid Ferriter gives a talk entitled A Republic of the Irish Mind? Twentieth Century Culture on September 18.
Among the many visual artists who will be presenting work at the festival are Dorothy Cross, Ger Sweeney, Aideen Barry, Alannah Robins, Sean Halpenny, and Donald Teskey.
All the above is just a small sampling of the many delights and attractions on offer. There are field trips, workshops, book and album launches, street theatre, dance, comedy, and much else besides.
Full details of the programme can be seen on the festival website at www.clifdenartsweek.ie and bookings are now being taken.
